Monday, July 30, 2007

Monday 07/30 A.M. Quickie:Ripken, Bonds, NFL Camping, Iraq, More!

Ripken and Gwynn enshrined in Baseball Hall of Fame: And, for one day at least, sports (and fans) are pulled from the month's sense of ruin.

Bonds Watch: Still at 754, but the record is better tied (and broken) during the week, when there's of a national focus by fans, than on the weekend.

(Will they boo Bonds in L.A.? Probably. The funny thing is that he could totally rest up and wait until the Giants got back to San Francisco before trying again to break the record. Not a bad strategy, if he wants to avoid road-game boos from tainting his record-tying and –breaking accomplishments. Um, MORE.)

UPDATE: KG to Celtics? Man, could the NBA use a blockbuster trade right now or what? (Note: I have been a proponent of the T'wolves trading Garnett for a few seasons now. And getting Al Jefferson -- even if Jefferson will command a near-max contract soon enough -- will make it easier to take. If the Celtics have KG, Pierce and Ray Allen, they might have the best threesome in the NBA... but who gets to shoot?) Tracking...

Meanwhile, Jose Canseco insinuated that A-Rod might be tainted. As others have noted (and I agree): It's no longer easy to dismiss Canseco as some kind of fame-whore lying to get more attention. Not when he seems to be the only person in baseball talking even remotely straight about the extent and severity of its steroids scandal. (And he isn't afraid to name names to the Mitchell Commission. Cripes, if the guy had even a smidgen of a p.r. compass, he would be able to turn himself into a rare HERO in this MLB/PED story.)

MLB Stud: Carlos Zambrano, who became MLB's first 14-game winner. And as the Cubs close in on the NL Central lead, Zambrano assumes front-runner status in the NL Cy Young race.

MLB Dud: Brewers. In just 5 weeks, Milwaukee's lead in the NL Central has gone from 8.5 games to .5 games. Cubs fans must be going crazy.

MLB Trade Deadline: Tomorrow. Suddenly, Eric Gagne (as set-up guy, not uber-closer) is the hottest commodity on the block. UPDATE: Teixeira to the Braves for a Salty catcher and prospects. Great move for the Braves. Good move for the Rangers, who would have lost Teixeira to free agency inevitably anyway. More on this and all trades tomorrow.

MLB Milestones: Ichiro became the third-fastest player to get to 1,500 career hits. Between his career in Japan and in MLB, I think he's a Hall of Fame lock. Will his MLB totals be discounted because he started his career here late? They shouldn't be.

Arena Bowl: The San Jose Sabercats are officially a dynasty, after winning their third Arena Bowl title in the last 6 years. More important, the game was the first team championship game to be held in New Orleans since Katrina. That's reason enough to root for Arena League (if only for the day). And it was Arena League's first-ever sellout at a neutral site. It caps the biggest year yet for the sports league that I'd argue is the model for how sports have to be in the 21st Century.

Meanwhile, will Simeon Rice replace Michael Strahan in New York? Seems like the Giants are already figuring out how to live without him.

Pac-Man Fever: Jones could be joining TNA wrestling. Which will undoubtedly make him THAT much more appealing for Roger Goodell to bring back to the NFL, right? Cripes. Can't Jones just spend the year quietly training for his NFL return? His agent might think that Jones is simply capitalizing on his brand awareness, but what kind of brand are we aware of?

CFB: Pac-10 secession from BCS? I'm late on this, but it's worth pointing out. The Pac-10 Commissioner said he would pull the conference from the BCS if it instituted any kind of "Plus-One" playoff model.

Now, how is that so far off from my ground-breaking idea that the SEC should secede ("SEC-ede" – get it?) from the BCS, but not because it doesn't want a playoff, but because it DEMANDS a playoff.

By the way, I would love to see how the Pac-10 Commissioner would react when, say, USC goes undefeated but loses out on a national championship because they can't play for it.

Look, let's just dump the Pac-10: They can have the Rose Bowl (and take the Big Ten with them). Let them play their little Grandaddy of an exhibition game after the season, while the SEC crowns its next national champ. (OK: I'd settle for the SEC champ versus Texas.)

Gulbis gets first LPGA win: She's still better known for being hot (or squiring around with Big Ben) than for being a great golfer. But now she can point to a tournament W.

High School Football: Hoover (AL) High from MTV's "Two-a-Days" is both arguably the best high school football program in America and, arguably, the most corrupted high school football program in America. And if you don't think those two things are interrelated, you're living in a fantasy world.

Finally, some good news from Iraq. The country's soccer team won the Asian Cup in an upset over Saudi Arabia. Still not sure if that qualifies as "progress" in the larger scheme of things over there.

I know the college football stuff gets more comments and all that. But you make us crazy SEC fans look rational. No one likes the elitest attitude, even though I agree the SEC is the best conference, but it hasn't always been and it won't be. The whole point of a championship is to determine who is best, if you automatically dismiss someone, then you can't make that claim.

Adrian Peterson is a good bet for rookie of the year though as long as he stays healthy.

I occasionally watch TNA wrestling (go ahead and laugh) and they have had some MLB players on before (Damon, Pryzinski, Eckstein) so its not too surprising. It would be interesting to see what kind of reaction he gets and if his theme song will be "Make it Rain"

Didn't USC ALREADY win a national championship without actually playing for it?

Arena Football League as model: low salaries, check. fan-friendly players hanging out after games....check. IN CAHOOTS WITH ESPN, the only way to get noticed on cable it seems any more....that's a BIG check (with a nod to Hermes Conrad)

Somebody big's gotta move in MLB. I can't believe I might win my fantasy trade-deadline pool only for picking Kenny Lofton back to the Tribe.

Giants should let Strahan walk....he and Barber were cancers-you-weren't-allowed-to-call-out on that team. Go make Subway commercials and compare tooth-gaps with Letterman. His sack record was extremely tainted, we should remember....Favre took a dive.

Some quick stats would be that Jeter would easily have the weakest numbers of any inductee. With only 2300 hits he's basically at the bottom of that list except for guys that were tremendous power hitters like Stargell or DiMaggio.

Even though he has won the last 3 gold gloves at shortstop, even he knows he won them by popularity.

You can say that he has won the championships but was he really ever the best player on a world series team? The answer is no.

How much does his leadership really do now that we know that most of the Yanks aren't too fond of eachother and haven't won a world series in 7 years?

He never stole 35 bases or hit 25 homers and only had 100 RBI once. He doesn't have an MVP.

You could point to his postseason stats but they might show you that when the series goes 7 he doesn't show. They might also tell you that he might not show up for the World Series sometimes.

Let the SEC secede. As I said the 1st time you brought it up, we will see how well the schools can recruit when they have no chance at a national title. I doubt the alums would let that happen, but I would love to see it just so we can have people like Dan stop spewing this dreck about how great the SEC is.

Would it surprise anyone to find out A-Rod is or was on steroids, probably not. Since he is a little bigger now then he was in Seattle.

Jeter a Hall of Famer if he retired today - I guess it would depend on what the voter use to decide. Is it Stats or overall meaning to his team? if it is stats then he would be consider a borderline hall of famer.

Christ...you'r not only a bandwagon SEC fan, but an elitist bandwagon SEC fan? The Big 10 (home of YOUR alma mater) is 6-5 in Bowl games against the unbeatable SEC in the last 5 years, yet you spend all your time pimping your wifes team. Maybe if you ever get divorced you'll get one of your testicles back...

With nothing on yesterday except the Royals beating up on the Rangers, I flipped on ESPN to watch their Nascar coverage. I hated parts of it and liked parts of it. I hated the whole "aero" graphics, just liked retarded. Hated that once again they cross promotion with ABC having the Desparete Housewife guy. Now that I think about it, the only thing I liked was when they would explain and show different thing in the car, such as how Jr's engine may have exploded etc.

The thing is, that stats wise he's not a hall of famer. Not. Just look at the numbers. If not for the pinstripes or the name, he wouldn't be considered.

But the pinstipes stick out and everybody knows his name.

The other problem is that most of the things that we say are "intangibles" with Jeter are basically made up. Leadership? When they were winning he wasn't the best player and wasn't a veteran leader. Now? They aren't getting rings and they don't like eachother.

i'm from birmingham, al., and local sports talk has been focusing a lot on probst and hoover during the slow summer. i'd be interested to know if there was a particular story or something else that motivated you to bring them up here this morning.

I think with ESPN's coverage of NASCAR you could start a new drinking game. Every time on of there annoucers uses the term aero loose you drink. Of course you would be drunk in about 10 minutes but it would make the race more fun to watch

I think Jeter is a HOFer. Just not right now. But I guess that is the reason for the question. He will get his 3,000 hits and of course he has the benefit of playing for the Yankees, so he will get in. If he had the same career with the Royals though, he would be toiling away in relative obscurity.

Obviously the belief is that Jeter will get to the hall because he will get to 3000 hits. He may even get to 3500. I don't see him staying around for 4000 though. I think his celebrity might get in the way of him playing till he's like 45.

I thought the question was if Jeter would get in on his first ballot. Obviously, he would get in at some point because of the 4 rings and the fact that he put up solid numbers. First ballot if he retired today? I'd say yes. Better player than many other Hall of Famers. Buster's comparison to Koufax was pretty good too.

I despise when people say how tainted the Tour de France champion is. Of course A-Rod doped. Of course Bonds doped. We all know it and they are still playing and we are celebrating their milestones.

How about making A-Rod give a urine and blood sample before the game tomorrow. If he is positive, suspend him for four years and make the Yankees forfeit all the games he played this year? That is the exact equivalent of what cycling would do. Baseball will never come close.

The cleanest sporting event right now IS the Tour de France simply because it is the one sport that seriously and to the best of their ability try to catch cheats and have severe punishments for first time cheats.

Now arguably MLB and the NFL have the better approach from a business perspective. Perform the most minimal testing possible with the least penalties just for the sake of public appearance.

I don't think people should take Canseco as seriously. He played with the people he named in his first book, so there was some first hand knowledge. He never played with ARod, so I'm not sure his info on this is any more credible than Schilling. BTW, people seem to have forgotten that Ortiz was insinuated as an HGH user a while back.

Jeter will get in the HOF. If he retired today though, he wouldn't be a first ballot guy at all. I love Jeter, but I feel Mattingly would be more deserving if Jeter retired now, but people place way too much credit/blame for championships on one guy in a 25 man team.

Back to the whole college football playoff mess. The reason the college and league presidents don't want to change is that they make a lot of money from bowl games. The other bowl games would completely lose any attention except from fans of the competing teams if there was a playoff. Well in my opinion, this has already happened. Half the seats in the lesser bowl games are empty and ratings are fairly poor.

The money associated with a true playoff would be huge. Look at what the NCAA tourney does for basketball. People who don't even care about basketball become bracket experts for a week.

The 6 BCS conference winners plus two at large teams according to the BCS pool the way they have it now. The PAC-10 wouldn't be able to pull out if they other 5 conferences agreed to it.

If Jeter retired today, just walking away from the game, then he's probably a boderline candidate. If he were forced away from the game due to some unforeseen health issue (a la Kirby Puckett), then Jeter would definitely be a first ballot.

Last year a friend of mine and I worked on a list of All-Time great SS, and I think Jeter came in around #7, and I hate the SOB, so take that as something. When it's all said and done, he could easily wind up a top 5 SS of all-time, probably ending up with around 3,500 hits.

baseballreference.com has Jeter as the 7th batter overall on the Bill James HOF Monitor for not-yet-eligible players, between Sosa and Thomas; he's 15th by the other metric (between Rickey Henderson and Sosa this time.) So he's either a lock or borderline at this point. Either way, I think he'd get in on the strength of postseason performances, his perceived leadership role, and the fact that we has pretty much all of the qualities you want out of a leadoff hitter (high OBP, good baserunning, etc.) while playing a premium defensive position.

I kinda hope Jeter hangs around....makes a serious run at 4000....in my perfect world he ends up toiling, but appreciated, on lousy Yankees teams a la Mickey Mantle in the late 60's.

I think he's definitely in, and probably gets in even now if he suddenly stopped playing.

The comparison to Tom Brady's not so bad....what if HE retired, would he be in? What if Brady plays a few more years and the Pats underachieve in the playoffs, when he's suppoed to be the almighty leader, etc....the fashionista celebrity aspect is obvious, too, in comparing him to Jeter.

I'm amused at verbal, as soon as cmfost went after A-Rod, verbal brought up a Sox name....everything but the actual name-calling between you two, boys, simmer down or it's a time-out for both of you.

Canseco has a little credibility, in that he did get Palmeiro right when that one seemed hard to believe. But this coming out now about A-Rod seems hard to believe, since he didn't mention it in his first book, right?

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, etc. all definitely used steroids. David Eckstein and Casey Fossum definitely did not use steroids. Everyone else is a maybe. It's sad, but it's a reality. There's just no way to know who did and who didn't unless they were tied to Canseco or the BALCO investigation.

I would have to put Jeter behind Honus Wagner, Cal Ripken, Ozzie Smith, Luke Appling, Ernie Banks, A-Rod, Arky Vaughan, Robin Yount, and Barry Larkin. That was off the top of my head though. There could be others.

I think he'd be a HOFer. His batting average is nearly .320. There is only one player who's hit for a higher average with more than 5,000 ABs since the turn of the century (1900s) who hasn't made the HOF.

Plus I think the best comparison to Jeter would be someone like Kirby Puckett, loved in the hometown (at time of retirement), great average hitter, average pop.

Kirby has slighty more HRs, Kirby has same average, Jeter has more speed, bothe played tough fielding positions, both had multiple WS titles that many felt they were a major part of.

If you allow Puckett in, then Jeter is in also. Especially if you consider that the only way Jeter would stop right now is if he got hurt.

Of course, if we find out Jeter is mixed up with the steroids stuff, then he's done too (no accusations, just a point)

Guy, I might have Jeter above Appling, and probably above Ozzie, but otherwise I like your list. Larkin really is a great comp for Jeter, with Larkin's glove being better, Jeter's rings, and Jeter's higher K rate being the main differences. The only person I'd add to that though is A-Rod, who at this point has still played the most games at SS.

And I'm not name-calling or taking a shot at anyone when mentioning Ortiz. Just more bs about ARod constantly being attacked from all angles when others' names (yes, like Ortiz) have been brought up and then dropped almost immediately. It sounds to me that Canseco is eyeing another book/more $$$ and is throwing out the biggest name he can.

seriously Dan, the elitest SEC attitude has to go. The SEC contends for the national championship every year, but so does every other major conference. The SEC has an enormous fanbase, but so do the other major conferences. What's so special about the SEC that we should be bowing down to?

Larkin played in 19 seasons, this is Jeter's 13th. Their numbers are virtually the same right now and Larkin's glove was good, but not good enough to even put him in the same class with Jeter. Putting Larkin's name next to Jeter's is just plain ignorant.

Also, as per Larkin, he did play on some decent offensive teams, but nothing like what Jeter has played around. So that does inflate Jeter's runs and RBI numbers to a certain extent. Also, Larkin's overall numbers are a little hurt by his final years. If you took Larkin up through his 2000 season, and stopped there (close to the same number of seasons as Jeter), then it's a far better comparison.

I know Larkin doesn't have the aura that Jeter has around him, but Larkin was a hell of a player. When it's all said and done I'm sure Jeter will rank higher than Larkin, but it's not nearly as insulting a comparison as you might think factoring in things like park effects, K rate, defensive range, and the lineup surrounding each player.

Saying that a guy is the best player on his team because he won a WS MVP is crazy. That's only a few games. I know the Cardinals were bad last year, but if David Eckstein was their best player they might be the worst professional baseball team of all time.

I would argue that on the 2000 Yankees Bernie Williams was better along with either David Justice (for the half season he played) or Jorge Posada along with Andy Pettite, Roger Clemens, and Mariano Rivera.

Barry Larkin was better than Jeter on the bases and in the field and, for me, the K rate is kind of a big deal for a singles hitter. Jeter has more than 400 more strikeouts and almost 200 less walks. And Larkin has an MVP.

It's not like The SEC wins the mythical national championship every year.

No, but they do win it whenever they're in it. OK, I'll stop. But the intense conference homerism all over the country is one of the reasons I love college football so much (so it's fun to play along).

Stud: Big Z. I don't think he can be considered the Cy Young frontrunner yet: If you take everything into account (wins, Ks, ERA, WHIP) I think Peavy is the clear choice right now.

That said, Z is working on a serious Santanaesque second half.

And how do you not mention that he went 3/4 at the plate yesterday, Dan? Z has a .291 batting average (knocking on the door of his career high: .300). With Z's career BA at .223, when does Lou start batting him 8th ahead of Koyie Hill (2007 BA: .163; Career BA: .203)?

If the Big 10 and Pac 10 seceded I would be in heaven. I grew up a Badger fan and remember going to the 99 Granddaddy as the greatest vacation of my lifetime. I am now a Hoosier fan and my worst fear is that the WHEN they finally win the Big 10 they will be forced to play in Miami or Tempe as opposed to Pasadena. I could care less about the "National Championship." It doesn't even really exist.

i went to hoover during the beginning of the glory run and football there is no more "corrupt" than at any other high school or college in the country. the fact that the school board hired propsts college roommate as the princepal was stupid, but in the end it was only a handful of students who had there grades bumped 1 point. i think that is hardly enough to classify a scandal. this is more of the fact that everyone in alabama hates hoover and they are going after anything they can to bring them down

My attitude is that watching and following sporting events is a big part of our recreational activity. I am not going to completely give up on sports so of course I will keep coming back. I just keep it in perspective.

CNN-SI had a list of top 25 non-drug-related sports related scandals. Of course it is biased to North American sports and to more recent events even though the Chicago Black Sox scandal is #1 (of course).

I was thinking that Mike Tyson should have probably made that list somewhere.

I'd think that McHale as a former Celtic could sell KG on going to Boston. They have won a higher percentage of championships than even the Yankees (WS titles, although NY has a higher percentage of "league" titles).

Point being, maybe McHale's got some leftover green kool-aid he can slip Garnett.

I have to say that the Tony Taylor statement actually leaves a lot of wiggle room for a Johnny Cohcrane style defense. Vick's defense is that he didn't know what's going on at the house, and Tony Taylor's statement is that he acted "as Vick's agent" in spending the money. He didn't go anywhere with Vick, he just used his money. So Vick can get nailed a little, but he can still claim ignorance to a reasonable standard of doubt. End result would be a slap on the wrist. This might end up with Vick no worse off than Ray Lewis. I don't think that coffin is nailed shut on Vick just yet. He may still be a dick and he may never recover all his marketing mojo but I kind of expect him to walk out of this and onto an NFL field next season. This year is blown, but he's going to end up on a new team anyway, so this year was already blown.

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DanShanoff.com is a sports-blog spin-off of my long-time ESPN.com column, "The Daily Quickie." Anchored by an early-morning post of must-know topics, the blog is updated frequently throughout the day with new posts and user comments.